


Don't Look Back

by clgfanfic



Category: Alias Smith and Jones
Genre: Gen, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-21
Updated: 2012-10-21
Packaged: 2017-11-16 18:54:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/542733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clgfanfic/pseuds/clgfanfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Heyes and Curry find themselves on their own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Look Back

**Author's Note:**

> First published in the zine Just You, Me and the Governor #1. Written under the pen name Lynn Gill.

          Jed Curry crouched beneath the steps of the house, his father's words still ringing in his ears, commanding the boy, "Stay here.  Don't you come out or I'll tan you good."

          Gunfire rang out.  Jed heard his mother scream and watched his sister Rachael hit the dusty ground as she ran to join him in the concealing darkness beneath the porch.  "Get up, Rachael," Jed whispered frantically.  "Get up."  She didn't move.  His mother appeared past the rain-warped planks of the steps.  Bending over the fallen form of her daughter, she gathered the young blond girl into her arms.  Jed watched as his mother's clear blue eyes caught sight of him under the steps.  He began to cry.

          Jed started crawling forward, intending to disobey his father and go to his mother, but the stern look she flashed at him froze him under the steps.  "Please dear God look out for my baby, give him someone to love him—"  Jed heard his mother begin to pray.  A rifle cracked, cutting her words short.

          Jed watched as a circle of crimson spread out on the front of her pale blue dress. She slumped over Rachael, long blond hair mingling with her daughters, blue eyes still staring.

 

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

 

          Hannibal Heyes thrust the rifle he had just finished loading into his father's waiting hands, then reached to reload the revolver that lay waiting on the ground near him.  Kneeling next to Hannibal, his sister, Elizabeth, reloaded a second revolver, emptied by their parents at the raiders circling the barn.  Sarah, the youngest, clung to the bottom of Elizabeth's dress with one hand and clutched her rag doll to her chest with the other.  Large tears rolled steadily down her cheeks but she remained silent, watching her older siblings.

          "Mary, take the kids and hide.  They're goin' to beat us sure, and—"  Hannibal heard his father begin, but his mother interrupted.

          "Stephen, I'm staying right here and fighting.  They'll kill all of us if we fail."

          "I can shoot, Pa," Hannibal added.  "Let me help."

          Stephen Heyes looked from his wife to his son. Hannibal could see the pride that shown in his father's dark brown eyes.  "No man ever had such a family," he whispered.  "Alright son, bring those pistols and come over here."

          Hannibal grabbed the reloaded revolvers and scrambled past his sisters to join his father.  "Careful, Han," Elizabeth said as he crawled away.  His mother began shooting again, using the rifle, as the raiders circled, firing though the open door and windows.

          Large hands clasped Hannibal's shoulders as his father instructed, "Kneel down below this window, and when you can get a shot, shoot to kill, understand?"

          "Yes, sir."

          "All right," his father said, then added, "Keep your head down, son, they'll be shootin' at you too.  I'm proud of you, boy."  Returning to his position near the barn door, his father shouldered his rifle and fired.

          Hannibal did exactly as he had been told, and watching a man fall from the saddle after he had fired at him, the young boy realized he had killed his first man.  The thought saddened him.

          A flash of searing pain exploded behind his eyes and Hannibal felt himself falling back into the hay that lay on the barn floor.  It smelled sweet. "Hanni!" he heard Sarah scream and his mother shouted something at him, but he couldn't open his eyes.  The sound of the gunshots began to fade and Hannibal drifted into a peaceful blackness.

 

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

 

          Someone was crying.  Hannibal tried to open his eyes but it made his head hurt.

          The sound of the crying grew louder and Hannibal realized that whoever it was, he was now standing over him.  He heard Jed's voice.  "Not you, too.  I don't wanna be all alone.  Do you gotta be dead too?"

          Hannibal's eyes fluttered open, and he watched Jed step back, frightened.  "Jed," Hannibal said, studying his younger cousin's tear-stained face, confused, "whatcha doin' here?"

          "They're all dead," Jed sniffed out as he sank down into the hay near his cousin.

          Hannibal forced himself up onto his elbows and looked around the barn.  The memory of the attack flooded back.  His mother was laying near Elizabeth and Sarah, his father just inside the barn doors, the remains of a useless rifle still clutched in his hands.

          With Jed's help Hannibal made it to his feet and staggered over to his father.  He reached out, touching his father's cold face.  "I love you, Pa."

          He turned away, walking unsteadily to his mother and sisters.  Sarah still clung to the rag doll with cold, stiff fingers.  Tears filled Hannibal's eyes as he stared at them, blurring the image of death. "They won't wake up anymore," Jed said softly.  "We're all alone."

          "They'll be all right.  They're in heaven."

          "Why couldn't we go to heaven, too?" Jed asked.

          "I guess God didn't want us right now."

          "But who's gonna take care of us?"

          "We'll take care of ourselves," Hannibal told him, wiping the tears away with the back of his hand, trying to be braver than he felt.

          "We can do that?"

          "We've got to.  There ain't nobody here to do it for us anymore," Hannibal said as he reached out and shut Elizabeth's glassy green eyes.  "First we'll bury Ma, Pa and the girls, then we'll go over and bury your folks," he instructed Jed.  The younger boy nodded, trying hard not to cry again.

 

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

 

          It took them all night to dig the two sets of graves, and as the morning sun broke the darkness with an orange glow across the low hills Jed Curry sat on the front steps of the Heyes house, dozing as his cousin packed what was left after the raiders had ransacked the place.  When he emerged Hannibal was carrying two sets of old saddlebags the men had left behind or discarded.  "Come on," he told Jed as he shook him awake.  "Let's go over to your house and get your stuff."

          "What stuff?" Jed asked, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

          "You know – clothes, and whatever you want to take."

          They walked back to the Curry house and Jed packed a pair of saddlebags with clothes he picked out of the pile strewn across the floor by the raiders.  In a second pair he placed some food that the men had left behind and a small wooden dog his father had carved for him.  As they were leaving Jed stopped, and leaving Hannibal waiting, disappeared into the back part of the house.  He returned carrying one of his father's old revolvers in its holster.  Looking at Hannibal he said, "I'm goin' to learn how to use this.  I'm gonna be real good.  Nobody's ever gonna do this to my family again."

          Hannibal nodded, feeling the weight of his father's gun that he had found buried beneath his mother in the hay.  He wore it around his waist, like a man, but was forced to tie the holster on with a piece of twine to keep it from falling off, the last hole for the buckle still a good six inches away.  From the look in Jed's eyes Hannibal knew he'd have to do the same for him.  "Come on," Hannibal said quietly, hefting one of the saddlebags over his slim shoulder.  "Let's go."

          The pair left the house and Hannibal steered them west, toward Wyoming territory.  They walked in silence as they crossed the fields that marked their parents' adjoining land until they came to the edge of the property.  Hannibal turned around and looked back at the houses.  Jed followed.

          "Where we goin'?" Jed asked quietly when his cousin didn't say anything.

          "I don't know."

          "How we gonna eat when the food's gone?"

          "I don't know that either, but I'll think of something.  Quit worrin', I'll take care of you."

          "I know you will," Jed said, then paused.  Finally he whispered, "I'm scared."

          Hannibal looked at the young blond boy. "We're family, right?"  The younger boy nodded.  "Well, all we got now is just you and me, but we'll take care of each other real good from now on.  Don't look back no more."  He spun on his heel and started away.

          Jed looked down at the houses, nodded his head with conviction, then turned and followed his older cousin, stepping carefully into the tracks the older boy left in the soft earth.  His mothers last words echoed in his mind, give him someone to love…

          "Are you scared, too, Hannibal?" Jed asked.

          "Yeah, Jed, I am."


End file.
